Grandpa Tastes Concrete Over Videogames
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Speculating what peoples motivations on is fine, as humans we are going to do that but to judge somebody over your speculation or some reporters speculation is stupid. I wasn't there, and if I am I wouldn't be able to read the officers mind or the grandpa's mind. Just cause someone tilts the story one way or the other doesn't mean you have the cold hard facts. This story was taken from CNN which means they're going to side with the grandpa, if the story was taken off Fox they would have sided with the cop, that is why no news station can be trusted for more then the superficial facts.
Here is my take.
I think that the grandpa was innocent in the ordeal from what I can read, either he was trying to hid the game from his grandson, or put it in his pants.
BUT lets put ourselves in this scenario
Hundreds maybe thousands of shoppers all around you, your the only cop in the vicinity charged with the safety of the shoppers around you and the safety of the merchandise, it loud and deafiningly loud around you, and your probably on edge because everyone knows that people get hurt trampled and robbed on black friday. Add on top of that, your probably overworked because lets face it cops have a terribly tough schedule, and aren't payed nearly enough for the service they provide us.
With that scenario in mind, can you see the possibility that something bad might happen. Add on top of that on how mouthy people get when there stressed and shopping.
Now Imagine this,
Your a grandpa shopping with your grandson for christmas, it's defeaningly loud around you, and you've lost track of your grandson, you shove the game in your pants and start looking around for your grandson in the throngs of people when all of a sudden a cop shows up and starts saying something you can barely make out about shop lifting or about your intentions.
Now I don't know about you, but if I was trying to find my grandson, I'd probably be less then hospitable to this police officer.
Swtich roles
You just ask an older gentelmen why he just shoved a 60 dollar game into his pants, but he is avoiding eye contact looking around as if to run away, and you might lose him in the crowd, best to cuff him now as to avoid a chase or some other unpleasantness.
Switch roles
You can't find your grandson and now the cop that is standing in front of you just cuffed you, you have no idea why and you still can't find your grandson, you may even start to flail a bit or push up against the officer to find him or call out to him.
Switch roles
The suspect that you just cuffed seems to be getting physical with you, what you've been trained to do kicks in immediatly, because lets face it you don't have time to think there are hundreds if not thousands of shoppers around you who's safety your responsible for, so bam you get him down and restrained as fast as possible.
You see, it completely feasible that this was just a case of misunderstanding, no one was right or wrong, it's just an unfortunate circumstance of the insane shopping season, the elevated stress, and human nature. So please think of all the possible outcomes before you start judging people, or police officers who in all reality just want to keep you safe.
Sorry for the book. But hey if you read to the end +100xp, congratulations you've leveled up +3 points to your stats.
Here is my take.
I think that the grandpa was innocent in the ordeal from what I can read, either he was trying to hid the game from his grandson, or put it in his pants.
BUT lets put ourselves in this scenario
Hundreds maybe thousands of shoppers all around you, your the only cop in the vicinity charged with the safety of the shoppers around you and the safety of the merchandise, it loud and deafiningly loud around you, and your probably on edge because everyone knows that people get hurt trampled and robbed on black friday. Add on top of that, your probably overworked because lets face it cops have a terribly tough schedule, and aren't payed nearly enough for the service they provide us.
With that scenario in mind, can you see the possibility that something bad might happen. Add on top of that on how mouthy people get when there stressed and shopping.
Now Imagine this,
Your a grandpa shopping with your grandson for christmas, it's defeaningly loud around you, and you've lost track of your grandson, you shove the game in your pants and start looking around for your grandson in the throngs of people when all of a sudden a cop shows up and starts saying something you can barely make out about shop lifting or about your intentions.
Now I don't know about you, but if I was trying to find my grandson, I'd probably be less then hospitable to this police officer.
Swtich roles
You just ask an older gentelmen why he just shoved a 60 dollar game into his pants, but he is avoiding eye contact looking around as if to run away, and you might lose him in the crowd, best to cuff him now as to avoid a chase or some other unpleasantness.
Switch roles
You can't find your grandson and now the cop that is standing in front of you just cuffed you, you have no idea why and you still can't find your grandson, you may even start to flail a bit or push up against the officer to find him or call out to him.
Switch roles
The suspect that you just cuffed seems to be getting physical with you, what you've been trained to do kicks in immediatly, because lets face it you don't have time to think there are hundreds if not thousands of shoppers around you who's safety your responsible for, so bam you get him down and restrained as fast as possible.
You see, it completely feasible that this was just a case of misunderstanding, no one was right or wrong, it's just an unfortunate circumstance of the insane shopping season, the elevated stress, and human nature. So please think of all the possible outcomes before you start judging people, or police officers who in all reality just want to keep you safe.
Sorry for the book. But hey if you read to the end +100xp, congratulations you've leveled up +3 points to your stats.
Oh hai, I work in retail too and It is perfectly within reason, if a security guard witnesses someone jam products in their underwear, to go up to them and ask them just what the fuck they think they're doing. Cuff's were not placed on this guy until after he was taken to ground which means he kicked off before any action was taken against him. I've watched a whole bunch of Retail training videos and attended courses about what to expect in a retail environment...and pretty much every one, every story from every 30 year retail veteran, showed a very simple pattern - Thieves kick off the quickest, at the smallest provocation. Innocent people, in general, are actually quite compliant. Having both confronted thieves and people mistaken as thieves myself, I've first hand experience of the above being true.Frostbite3789 said:
Innocent people don't tend to resist, they tend to want to get the mix-up sorted out.
The "Don't confront them in the store" rule put in place by Loss prevention exists for Public relations reasons not loss prevention reasons. It's to stop the delicate flowers that are consumers from being offended if highly suspicious behavior like concealing store property down their pants is *gasp* construed as an intention to steal. I know, what a leap in logic right?
The idea that you will lose less items to thieves by letting them first leave the store before attempting to confront them is absurd. But that's a different topic.
Also, I don't why you're under the impression that police officers are trained in aspects of retail, loss prevention and protecting walmart's public relations.
It's unfortunate this guy face-planted but I don't see any compelling reason to blame the cops, nor do I think that there is currently any evidence to say they acted with excessive force.
This is important to remember.RagTagBand said:
I find it interesting that there is no footage of what happened immediately before the "police brutality". Seems like someone with an agenda is trying to paint the security negatively in this situation - and based on the stereotypical "Fuck the Police, Brutal Nazi Bastards" responses that I've seen in this thread, they've succeeded.
Generally, anyone who cries "Excessive Force" without ever having been in a potentially life threatening situation, should shut the fuck up. In My Humble Opinion.
Personally, I'm remaining neutral on this incident without knowing the full story - It MAY have been excessive force, it may have been justified. I can't possibly know because they've not shown me the whole story.
I love the police in my town. They're respectful, they're helpful, and they protect the people.
But when I see shit like this...well it makes me wish for vigilantes who would regulate the police. Somebody who would protect them from having their faces smashed in by cops who are so inept that they can't solve simple problems without smashing elderly people in the face.
But when I see shit like this...well it makes me wish for vigilantes who would regulate the police. Somebody who would protect them from having their faces smashed in by cops who are so inept that they can't solve simple problems without smashing elderly people in the face.
This is a major training fail on the part of the police. Shoplifting does NOT warrent that sort of take down. Especially in the case of a fairly scrawny old man. If you can't handle a suspect without the use of a taser, pepper spray, or beating them unconcious, you don't deserve a badge.
Seems like excessive police violence no matter what the circumstances. I mean come on, it says they already the cuffs on him so even if he was faliling around before that what's a 50+ year old guy gonna do afterwards?
I wonder how this'll go in a court of law when they can find witnesses proving both innocence and guilt.
I wonder how this'll go in a court of law when they can find witnesses proving both innocence and guilt.
if the grandson is used to putting his hands in his grandpa's pants I think the cop was completely justified in beating the snot out of him, just saying.RT-Medic-with-shotgun said:
If you didn't read the story fully and didn't realize the game was in the mans pants then you just jumped to a conclusion about police violence without reading the full story.
So, instead of the cop actually asking the man if he was going to pay for that item, he assumed that the man was shoplifting, even though he had no proof whatsoever. People are wierd, that doesn't mean that you have to arrest a man for putting a videogame in the waitstband of his jeans. Wait until you have proof before you go arresting a man for something as small as shoplifting a videogame. There was no excuse at all for this police brutality, I don't care if the man was not being compliant, I know I'm not going to be as compliant as they want me to be if some cop just randomly came up and put me in handcuffs for no apparent reason. This police officer should have his badge removed, or at least be put on suspension, police brutality for assumptions are far from appropriate.
gotcha we have different mental images, when I read waistband I was thinking the elastic waistbands on sweat pants. So I saw it as him jamming it in his pants.RT-Medic-with-shotgun said:
This. Probably ninja'd, but-Jedoro said:
Honestly, Black Friday is one of the worst inventions of Mankind. Ever. That is, Black Friday as a day where deals are common. Black Friday as a religious event nobody remembers? Meh. That's not so bad.
Although by now, I'd say it's black from altogether different reasons. Rather grim ones, at that. Grim and stupid. Really, are deals *so* important to these people that it warrants rushing to the store with the risk of being trampled to death or tackled by an overzealous police-person? If people reacted to these sales in an intelligent manner, sure. The way things stand, though? Fuck that. Late shopping for the Holidays is absolute murder.
I'll stick to Amazon's Black Friday deals, thank you. I won't be mauled in my desk chair.
